


We Will All Go Together When We Go

by likecrackingwater (1thetenfootlongscarf2)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1thetenfootlongscarf2/pseuds/likecrackingwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just sing out a te deum<br/>When you see that I.C.B.M.,<br/>And the party will be "come as you are".</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Will All Go Together When We Go

**Author's Note:**

> Mothers.

He knew that this was it. The world, suspended by a thread, hanging like a body from a noose. When he was on the Tonight Show almost a year ago the response was more than he imagined. 

The concept was simple. What is stronger than a lock, then encryption? Devotion.

He had been jaded in his youth, his mother had said. She was always sick. Every day she would go through a bottle of sanitation gel. Her hands would crack and bleed. That's how he remembered her - the burning smell of alcohol with the iron tang of blood.  

When he was very little he went to the store alone. It was a few blocks away. He knew she wouldn't miss him. Her hair was white and brittle and cracked when she moved.

During the day she would sit on the bed and stare at the wall, blanket around her shoulders like a cape. 

"Do you want to watch T.V.?" He would ask. 

She would blink at him with red rimmed eyes. He couldn't remember the color of them, just the burning, swollen redness that rimmed her bloodshot eyes.

"No." And her scaly hands would grip his wrists tight. "Why aren't you in school?"

"It's summer," he tried to wriggle free. He hated the way it felt when she touched him. 

"Go to school." She dropped his wrists. That sharp smell burnt his nose as he breathed.

"I'll go." He bolted from the room.

Now he stood in front of the display. There hundreds of bottles, clear plastic with clear gel. The bubbles hung suspended in it like fish trapped in ice.

He grabbed the largest one he could find. It was heavy, almost too heavy, and he bolted for the door. 

Someone grabbed the collar of his shirt and he chocked and dropped the bottle. The plastic cracked like a shot. Gel oozed out. He couldn't stand. They - him and the guard - tumbled to the floor.

There was shouting, "what's going on?" and "oh my god oh my god" and there was a police offer there helping him to his feet.

"What are you doing?" He was asked.

"My mom's sick," there were tears now. Hands pet and comforted him and no one had ever soothed him before.

They send officials to the apartment, social workers and police and people in white coats. They bundled her up as she kicked and screamed. He screamed too (mommy, mommy) but they held him back. He grew up in group homes and then in foster homes and then he graduated from MIT and went to the Tonight Show and said, "I'd like to introduce you to A.L.I." and showed her to the world. 

* * *

He knew her. Not well. Others would tell him, his dad and her old friends.

"She was so kind."

"She told the best jokes."

And his dad would agree and tell him, always, "I loved her very much, and she loved you too."

He must have assumed that it was an accident. No one told him what happened so he came up with in idea in the back of his mind. She must have wandered into the wrong part of the Ark, the dark part. There, in the blackness she slipped and hit her head and her body relaxed alone. Then some kids, who went where they weren't supposed to go, found her. They went screaming back to their families and they called his dad and he went running all the way into the bad sections and gathered her into his arms like all those movies he watched. He would cry and gather her close. The he would stand, back straight, her body cradled in his arms and take her to the Last Tree and show it to her one final time. His father told him she loved it, so he loved it too.

He would sit in front of it for hours trying to imagine what she saw in it. 

He told his best friend about it one day, what he thought happened to his mother. Her expression was pinched. "That's not what happened."

"So," he shrugged. "No one ever tells me anything. All I know is she's gone."

She took his hand and his heart thudded against his chest. She leaned in close, breath hot on his ear. "I'll tell you the truth."

He followed her into the labyrinth of the library. The books were locked behind glass with humidity control. They found a space in the back, by the religious texts. The lights were always dim here to protect the leather and paper. Behind her should he could see the gilded type spelling out  _Meditations on the Last Rights: The Travels of Father Patrick Murphy_. 

She held his hands in hers. They felt clammy but he was too happy to be grossed out. She was touching him and he could feel the heat of her body near his. 

"Do you know why there's no buttons inside the air locks?" Her voice was quiet.

"Safety and security. It would be dangerous to have the release on the inside of the locks."

"So why are there buttons on the outside of the air locks?"

"For the people who do repairs getting back inside. Are you worried about the test next week? You'll do fine."

She shook her head, eyes wet and wide.

"You need to listen. Please. You've read the books for this section right?"

He had;  _2001_ and  _The Martian_ and  _I, Robot_. "What of it?" _  
_

She gripped his hands tight and shook him by that. "Come on. Don't you understand what I'm saying?"

There was something slipping out of the back of his mind. It was dark and screaming. "No." He said.

"Yes," she replied. They looked at each other through the gloom. 

Then he was shaking as she gathered him close. They clung to each other like they were in the depths of space and if they let go they would drift apart, alone and weightless. There was something blooming in his chest. He was shuttered like paper in an air vent, the sound like bird thrashing on the ground.

"Hush, hush." She whispered as she rubbed his back.

"Why?" It burst forth like a broken dike, like he shattered and let the sea flood in. 

"I don't know." 

She cradled him in the fake dusk, hiding among the books of the dead.

* * *

 He didn't know how she hid it when he was small. He realized later she had simply stopped going out for a while, claiming an illness. 

Afterwards they kept eating the powder. She would carefully mix it with water. It was white. It made the water gritty. Sometimes he would run his tongue along his teeth and he could feel the powder cling.

He hated when they had to hide the her below the floor, and his mother would touch his shoulder and say, "It'll be alright." 

Somehow he believed her for the longest time. 

At school he would get the same lunch as everyone else; a tin of beans, a quarter of apple and a tasteless cracker. Once he smuggled his tin home and the three of them shared it, sitting on the hard floor. They didn't have any spoons so they picked the beans out of the water and ate them one at a time. That night she mixed a bit of the powder with the tin water and nothing had ever tasted so good.

His little sister giggled when he slaved over schoolwork. He would carefully tech her the letters and numbers. She would clap when he did. "A, B, C!" She would cry. Their mother would laugh and with trembling fingers count out the chips they had. 

Every other Thursday she would hand him fifteen, the plastic cool to the touch. "Hurry back."

She didn't make as much as she used to. A lot of people could sew and some customers didn't come back after she closed shop for three and a half months.

He remembered the first time she gave him fifteen chips. 

"I need you to get the food this week," her hands were warm on his face. "Can you do that?"

He had nodded. She told him where to go and what to say.

The man who sold it was rail thin with yellow eyes. His gut stood out like the prow of a ship. "It's called jaundice," was what he was told. The man laughed. "And it hasn't killed me yet."

"Will it?" He asked.

The man shrugged. "Everything does, here."

When his mother started to get big he thought she had that and fretted into the night. When he asked her his mother cried. "No," she whispered as she wiped her face, "oh, no. It's a baby, love."

She put his hands on her belly. 

The thin man was ever thinner now. His skin was yellowing around the edges.

"I hear you like history."

He nodded. 

The powder came with a book. The cover was a faded red. There was not text on it.

"Why do you keep buying this?" He was asked.

He shrugged. "My mom likes it."

"Really?" The thin man looked intrigued. "What does she call it?"

"Soylent."

The laughter shook the man's belly. "Oh, boy. That's perfect. Enjoy the book kid - it's yours."

The book was the Aeneid. He hid it from everyone and carried it with him. One day he found his mother holding the bag he made. It was carefully stitched from a section of his blanket. It had taken moths of practice, to unravel thread in one long piece. The book look especially fragile in her long fingers. He knew she couldn't read, had forgotten years ago. Her other hand was feeling the stitches of the bag. He knew they were perfect. 

"You did a very good job."

She patted the spot next to her. He sat down. When she handed him the book he clutched it tight. "I'm sorry," was all she said. She touched his hair, smoothed the top of his head. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

 She loved her mother, but she didn't want to be her. Sometimes her mother got stressed and yelled and her dad. When that happened she would hide under the covers of her bed with the door closed and wish for quiet.

Later she would wake up to her mother sitting on edge of her bed, carefully avoiding sitting on her daughter's feet. 

"Your father and I had another fight. I'm sorry you had to hear that."

"It's okay," she would say without moving her head. On the wall she had drawn Earth. Not the whole thing, just a copy of a picture her father had shown her.

"This is Vermont," he whispered as they stared at the riot of color. "Isn't it amazing?"

"Yeah." She whispered back. Then he carefully pressed the picture between two sheets of cardboard, put the lot in a zipbag, and put it in the fridge. 

Now her mother hesitantly touched her back. She still didn't move.

She didn't know - wasn't sure - who she was punishing. 

"I know you hate me right now," her mother continued, "but... I love you and your father loves you. You need to remember that. When we fight it's not about you."

"I know." She repeated. She wasn't sure if she believed it. 

The hand that rested on her back was soft. She could feel gentle pats lulling her to sleep. "Thank you, hun."

Her mother sighed. "I have so much... there is so much people expect from your father and I. I think someone plans on nominating me..." She trailed off.

She rolled over. Her mother was looking at the wall, her shoulder back but face slack. "What are they nominating you for, Mom?"

"Nothing important. Just more work." Her laugh was strained. "Always more work to be done here."

"Oh." She settled back on her stomach. The hand patted softer, softer. The world was drifting away.

The hand stopped moving and the world came back, just a bit. "Are you falling asleep right now?"

She nodded. it felt very heavy and the hand on her back felt very nice.

"Do you remember the song I used to sing to you?"

Another nod.

"Do you... Can I sing it to you tonight?"

The forest in front of her eyes blurred. "Yes."

"Okay." Her mother cleared her throat. "Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and what's on the other side? Rainbows are vision, but only illusions and rainbows have nothing to hide."

The hand rubbed her back until she fell asleep.


End file.
